Webster Hall is a solid venue, and a frequent stop for many great bands on their rise to glory. If you've only got a few nights in the city, chances are a great act will be playing here.

The operators of the Peter Pan bakery make the best donuts I've ever tasted. This place is charming to its core. Decor and presentation: circa 1971 & virtually unchanged since.

If I lived closer to the West Village I’d go over to Jack’s every morning for a coffee and occasionally having what is probably the best chocolate chip cookie in New York (and it’s just a dollar!). Even though it’s rarely in my way I try to go here now and then, maybe in combination with a stroll down the beautiful Bleeker Street or to read a book sitting in their window.

When I first moved to New York, enamoured by its parks and museums and design firms and restaurants and bars, I never imagined that there could be much more to its geography than that. How wrong I was. My first drive across the George Washington Bridge was jaw-dropping - the cliffs of New Jersey are astonishingly tall, covered in a dense thicket of trees. But that was just the tip of the iceberg. Drive up 87 to the Catskills or the Adirondacks and you'll witness the Hudson River winding its way through spectacular scenery and unforgiving seasons. Now I can't get enough; just two hours up the road, it's like the city never existed. Perfect recuperation after a long week.

A masterpiece of LGBT art has been restored in what may now be the most valuable restroom in America.